Research

Amsterdam Yiddish Symposium 2017 - Yiddish after 1945

After the Second World War, Yiddish culture appeared all but annihilated. The murder of large numbers of Yiddish speakers during the Shoah, which came after almost a century of linguistic assimilation among of Ashkenazic Jews, seemed to mark the end of Yiddish as a living language. This caused serious concern among remaining Yiddish intellectuals such as authors, journalists, theatre and film makers and educators, who began to question how and if the use of the Yiddish language was to be continued.

During this symposium, three scholars of Yiddish literature and culture will present important observations and considerations regarding the state and future of Yiddish after the end of the Second World War. Gali Drucker Bar-Am will map out major Yiddish cultural enterprises that took place around the world in the immediate post-war years. Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov will describe and analyze Yiddish activities in Poland, a country with state-sponsored Jewish institutions, in the two decades following the Second World War. Anita Norich will talk about the role of translation: translation as the herald of the end of a living Yiddish culture or as a means of preservation of this culture that enables it to continue to flourish.